NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has asked real estate firm Unitech to deposit Rs 5 crore by August 5, 2016 for delaying the completion of a high-end residential project Burgundy it had launched on the Noida-Greater Noida Expressway near New Delhi.

“If the amount is not deposited, liberty is granted to the respondents to move an application for contempt of this Court and in that event, the Directors of the petitioner-company may be sent to custody,” Justice Dipak Misra and C Nagappan said in their order.

The court had earlier asked the company to deposit the amount by June 10, 2016 after it had failed to comply with a 2015 order of the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC). “The amount so deposited shall be kept in a short term fixed deposit in the UCO Bank, Supreme Court Compound, New Delhi, so that interest can be accrued on the same.”

The court revised the date for depositing the money as August 5 after Unitech filed an application for extension of time to pay the amount.

An email questionnaire sent to Unitech did not elicit any response.

On the complaint of two home buyers—Diwakar Mishra and Vinay Kumar Singh—who had bought apartments in the project in October 2010 and were to get possession by April 2012, NCDRC had asked Unitech to offer possession of the apartments on or before October 31, 2017 and also pay “compensation in the form of simple interest @ 12% per annum w.e.f. 16.04.2013 till the date on which possession is offered to them or till 31.10.2017, whichever be earlier. The interest payable till 31.12.2015 shall be paid in three equal instalments. The first instalment shall be paid by 10.01.2016, the second instalment by 10.02.2016 and the third instalment by 10.03.2016. The compensation in the form of interest for the period w.e.f. 01.01.2016 shall be paid on monthly basis by the 10th of each succeeding month.”

“The grievance of the complainants is that despite they having paid more than 95% of the agreed sale consideration to the opposite party, the possession has not been offered to them and in fact the construction of the flats is still far from complete,” the NCDRC order had said.